Japan’s biggest steel-maker has warned it will push through more price hikes, in a blow to firms from carmakers to members of the machinery industry, which are already grappling with surging costs.
Nippon Steel will need to pass on the sharp cost increases for inputs such as iron ore and coking coal "promptly and fairly,” Takahiro Mori, executive vice president, said this week in an interview. "Otherwise our profits will be squeezed.”
Domestic peer JFE Holdings Inc. took a similar stance. The company is currently in talks with customers to raise prices by ¥30,000 ($236) a ton from April to cover the rising costs of the key raw materials as well as logistics and fuels, Chief Financial Officer Masashi Terahata said in a separate interview Friday.